People and Organizations

Introduction For most private sector employees in Sri Lanka, the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) and the Employees' Trust Fund (ETF) act as the main financial support after retirement. These systems are meant to provide security after many years of work. However, many HR professionals, economists, and employees believe the system is not working as effectively as expected. The gap between what these funds promise and what they actually deliver shows a key Human Resource Management (HRM) issue, not just a policy problem (Opatha, 2010).   The Existing System and Emerging Concerns In the current system, employees contribute 8 percent of their monthly salary to the EPF, while employers add 12 percent. Employers also contribute an additional 3 percent to the ETF. Although these contributions seem high, the actual value of savings is often reduced by inflation and low interest rates. Many employees also lack a clear understanding of how and when to use these funds. Studies show that...

  Introduction: What happens to an HR team when an algorithm can screen 500 resumes in thirty seconds? This is no longer hypothetical in 2026. Organizations across Sri Lanka are increasingly adopting AI-powered tools for recruitment, performance tracking, and even predicting employee turnover. The issue is no longer whether AI will disrupt HR, but whether Sri Lankan HR professionals are prepared to engage with it effectively.   What the Research Says: AI can significantly improve the speed and objectivity of HR processes, particularly in high-volume recruitment and performance data aggregation (Tambe, Cappelli and Yakubovich, 2019). However, research also highlights critical risks. If AI systems learn from historical data that includes bias, they may repeat those patterns, making unfair hiring decisions more frequent and systematic (Tambe, Cappelli and Yakubovich, 2019). In developing economies, the primary barrier to AI adoption is not cost, but the lack of HR profess...

Every morning in Colombo, thousands of people log in to PickMe, check freelance dashboards, or open food delivery apps before traditional employees start work. The gig economy in Sri Lanka is no longer a future trend; it is already a daily reality for a large share of the workforce. Yet HR frameworks have not kept pace, creating risks for worker welfare and business sustainability (Weeraratne, 2019). The gig economy expanded rapidly during and after the 2022 economic crisis. As formal jobs declined and inflation eroded stable incomes, many Sri Lankans turned to platform-based work as a primary or secondary income source. Platforms like PickMe, Uber, and global freelancing sites absorbed much of this labor. Gig and informal workers already account for a significant share of Sri Lanka’s non-agricultural workforce, and this has grown further since the crisis (Weeraratne, 2019). Figure 1: Estimated distribution of gig workers by sector in Sri Lanka (illustrative, based on...

  Walk into almost any government department in Sri Lanka and ask how employee performance is measured. You’ll likely hear about the Annual Confidential Report that is a decades-old form completed by supervisors, rarely shared with employees, and not linked to meaningful outcomes. This outdated practice reflects a major HRM issue in Sri Lanka’s public sector (Opatha, 2010). Sri Lanka’s public sector employs over 1.4 million people, making it one of the country’s largest employers. However, its performance management systems do little to distinguish high performers from disengaged or underperforming employees. Promotions are largely based on seniority, with minimal link between performance and rewards. It was note, the system measures activity rather than outcomes, doing little to drive real organizational performance (Fernando and Prasanna, 2018). Figure 1: Employee satisfaction with performance management practices across public and private sector organizations in ...

  Sri Lanka’s apparel industry is a major pillar of the economy, contributing nearly 47% of total export earnings. It employs thousands of workers and mostly women in Free Trade Zones such as Katunayake, Biyagama, and Seethawaka. However, high employee turnover remains a serious challenge, placing pressure on HR departments (Perera, Jayasekara and Samarasinghe, 2020). Low wages, compulsory overtime, demanding working conditions, and limited career growth drive employee dissatisfaction. Studies report that many workers, especially women in the Katunayake FTZ, feel undervalued, leading them to seek better opportunities abroad or in other sectors (Gunawardana, 2016). Figure 1: Annual employee turnover rate by industry in Sri Lanka (illustrative, based on industry research) The cost of high employee turnover is often underestimated. Replacing an experienced machine operator involves recruitment, training, and a period of reduced productivity before the new worker reaches full performan...

  The COVID-19 pandemic forced organizations worldwide to adopt remote work almost overnight. In Sri Lanka, this shift was challenged by unreliable electricity, limited internet access, and cultural assumptions about work. However, it revealed that employees could remain productive from home, leading many to expect continued flexibility (Abeysekera, 2021). Figure 1: Estimated share of employees working remotely or in hybrid arrangements by sector in Sri Lanka (illustrative, based on post-pandemic workplace research) The 2022 economic crisis reinforced this change. Fuel shortages made commuting difficult, pushing even resistant companies to adopt remote work. This period showed that physical presence does not equal productivity. Sectors like IT, banking, professional services, and education maintained or improved output during remote operations (Jayawardena and Perera, 2022). Flexibility as a Strategic HR Tool: Beyond productivity, flexible work is a strong retention tool for Sri L...

  Few industries in Sri Lanka have faced as much turbulence as tourism. The Easter Sunday attacks of 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the economic crisis of 2022 delivered consecutive blows that left the sector struggling to recover its workforce, its reputation, and its institutional knowledge. Tourist arrivals collapsed from nearly 1.9 million in 2019 to just 194,000 in 2021 (Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, 2022). The human cost behind those numbers was enormous, and HR departments in the sector are still dealing with the consequences today. When hotels and travel operators shut down or scaled back dramatically, thousands of trained hospitality workers lost their jobs. Many moved into other sectors or left the country entirely. When tourism began recovering from 2022 onwards, operators found themselves facing a skills vacuum. Experienced front-desk staff, tour guides, chefs, and guest relations managers were simply not available in the numbers needed. It i...

  Sri Lanka made history in 1960 when Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the world's first female Prime Minister. More than six decades later, that milestone still feels more like an exception than a trend. In the country's private sector, women remain significantly underrepresented in senior management and board-level positions, and the HR systems that should be closing that gap are often the same ones widening it (Samarakoon and Randeni, 2019). The numbers tell a sobering story. Women make up over half of Sri Lanka's university graduates, yet their representation in senior corporate roles drops sharply. According to scholars, fewer than 15 percent of board members in listed companies in Sri Lanka are women ( Jayatilaka and Dias, 2017). This is not a pipeline problem alone; it is a structural one. Qualified women exist. The barriers are built into how organizations recruit, promote, and define leadership. Figure 1: Women vs Men representation across organizational levels in Sri ...